Amar Kovcic v. NK Trnje Zagreb

Player Amar Kovcic claimed against Croatian club NK Trnje Zagreb over unpaid amounts for August, September, and October, arguing his status as a professional under FIFA's rules brought the dispute within the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber's jurisdiction rather than leaving it as a purely domestic amateur matter. The club's position was that no contract had ever been signed between the parties at all, that Kovcic had been an amateur throughout his registration, and that neither side even had the ability to unilaterally terminate whatever arrangement existed between them.

The FIFA DRC had already ruled on the underlying claim before the case reached CAS, awarding Kovcic a modest pro rata sum: for the 12 days he worked in October specifically, it awarded €271, plus 5% annual interest — implicitly treating him as entitled to some payment without resolving his broader claim to full professional status and a correspondingly larger award.

Sole Arbitrator Ernesto Gamboa Morales held a videoconference hearing on 29 October 2024; the club's own president, Jakov Sivric, had been called as a witness but did not appear. Applying the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, the Arbitrator confirmed that professional status turns on two specific conditions, regardless of how a player happens to be registered with the relevant domestic football association: the player must have a written employment contract with a club, and must be paid more than the expenses he actually incurs through his footballing activity. The DRC had noted that Kovcic's own player release documented him as registered as an amateur; before CAS, Kovcic still could not produce any written employment contract, and had not established that whatever payments he did receive exceeded his actual football-related expenses.

The appeal was dismissed and the FIFA DRC's decision — including its modest €271 pro rata award — was confirmed in full, with the award issued without costs and each party bearing its own legal fees. The case is a clear illustration that professional status under FIFA's rules is not established merely by showing some payment was made or that a claim has some domestic-federation registration attached to it; the specific written-contract and expenses-exceeded elements of the definition must both be proven, and neither was here.